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  <title>Chapter 12</title>
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            <h1 class="title">Chapter 12</h1>
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          <h2 class="subtitle">Belah</h2>
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      <p class="first first-in-chapter first-full-width"><span class="first-letter first-letter-b">B</span>elah stirred from her dreams, hazy, yet sated and content. Lukas breathed slow and steady beside her, deep in exhausted slumber. The strains of music from her dream still drifted through her ears and she hummed along softly with her eyes closed.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Her hums faltered after a moment when she realized she was only hearing one half of the composition that had filled her dreams. This time, however, it was the half that she had yet to hear while awake—the half that had been missing from Lukas’s song. She stopped humming and opened her eyes, turning her focus to the ambient sounds in the dark room, and then what was unmistakably actual music playing from somewhere very close by.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Her heart sped up. It wasn’t the tune that Lukas had played, but the counterpoint that should have accompanied it—that <i>had</i> accompanied it in her dreams. The rhythm matched perfectly, but the notes were different—rougher and deeper in pitch, but no less beautiful.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Glancing down at Lukas’s sleeping face, Belah brushed a kiss across his forehead and silently slipped from the bed.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The music came from above, filtering through the ceiling and the roof beyond. Navigating her way through the moonlit shadows of the apartment, she located a stairwell and stole naked into the darkness. The music grew louder as she approached and she carefully let herself out a door and into the damp night air on the roof.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Rough gravel bit into her bare feet, but she cared little for the discomfort, or for the cool breeze that drifted over her naked skin. Across the roof from where she exited, a solo figure sat, silhouetted by the moon. Silvery light glinted off an instrument in his hands that resembled the one Lukas played, only much larger.</p>
      <p class="subsq">She hesitated to move, lest she disrupt the man’s playing, but Sweet Mother—if Lukas were the one, how could this man’s music fit so perfectly into the missing gaps of her dream? Who was he?</p>
      <p class="subsq">Slowly, she took a few steps to the side, hoping to get a better look at him. Once in profile, she blinked, confused. <i>Lukas?</i> No, it couldn’t be him. She’d left him sound asleep below. Upon further inspection, she saw that this man was slightly larger and thicker around chest and shoulders, his hair cropped close to his head where Lukas’s had been long. But he had the same angular cut to his cheeks and jaw, and from the way he played, the same beautiful, talented mouth.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The music transfixed her. With chest heaving, she began mouthing words that seemed to fit the sounds that carried through her memory and through the air across the roof to her ears. In a voice she hadn’t used for eons in such a manner, she sang, the song pouring from her soul in accompaniment to the music that came from the man’s saxophone.</p>
      <p class="subsq">His aura flickered around him, the shimmering cloud that reflected a turul’s connection with the winds signaling his awareness of her, though his playing never faltered. His head shifted in the direction of her voice and his dark eyes rose until they were locked onto hers.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The moment was charged with energy, his eyes widening with unexpected recognition. Belah kept singing, both elated and confused by this need to match the notes of his song with her own voice, all the while in her mind she replayed the notes of Lukas’s song along with it. Together, it all felt right. Whoever this man was, with his shadow of dark emotion—sadness that filtered into the sounds coming from his instrument—he was meant for her, and she had to have him.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Her voice rose to a crescendo, along with the notes of the music he played. Around her a light breeze picked up, flowing across her body and twisting in the long strands of her hair. The sounds of their songs merged together and the breeze became a cool wind swirling around her.</p>
      <p class="subsq">When he played the last note, it seemed to go on forever, and she sensed he didn’t wish to end the song. A din of emotions reached her from his mind—the strongest was his belief that somehow, he’d conjured her with his music and that she wasn’t really there. He wanted her so badly, but feared that she would fade away the moment that last note faded into the heavens.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Tears began to well in his eyes as he continued to force the note to persist, but even his magically imbued lungs were running out of air, and so were Belah’s.</p>
      <p class="subsq">They trailed off at the same moment, their gazes still locked. She took a tentative step closer. He removed the strap from his instrument and set it on the ground, leaning it gently against his seat, never once turning away from her. Slowly he stood, his gaze roaming over her, flitting up and down her body in disbelief.</p>
      <p class="subsq"><i>Yes, I am still here,</i> she wanted to say, but held the conviction that anything but a song would disrupt their connection.</p>
      <p class="subsq">They stood a few feet from each other, his mind still a blur of confusion and wonder at her very existence. Finally, he made an incoherent noise of impatience and rushed to her.</p>
      <p class="subsq">His large body loomed, then his arms were around her, lifting her up while he gripped the back of her head and tilted it back for his mouth to find hers. His fingers twined in her hair and she let him devour her, tongue lashing between her lips while her own answered with equal fervor. His momentum kept them moving until she felt cold brick against her back and was vaguely aware that he had her pressed against the wall beside the door she’d come out of.</p>
      <p class="subsq">One large hand cupped her breast, and his hungry lips trailed down to take her nipple fully into his mouth. Belah raked her fingers through his short hair, clawing at the back of his neck while his suckling mouth pulled and teased at her, soon switching to the other breast.</p>
      <p class="subsq">His hips tilted up, pressing hard against hers, his erection straining at his jeans. She ran her hands down his hard chest, pulled his shirt up and off, then went for the button of his jeans. Heavy breaths gusted against her ear as she unfastened his pants and reached inside.</p>
      <p class="subsq">She stroked him, coaxing his massive length out of his pants and rejoicing at the velvet heat of his skin against her aching core. With one hand bracing himself against the wall beside her head, he wrapped the other around her thigh and lifted her up higher.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Belah wrapped both legs around him, leveraging herself up his body with one hand on his shoulder. She sank down onto him, taking him entirely in a single stroke and crying out as he stretched her slick channel, fitting as perfectly as Lukas had. He pulled out slowly and rammed hard into her with a harsh grunt, nailing her hips into the wall. It would have been painfully uncomfortable, if Belah didn’t love it so much.</p>
      <p class="subsq">His dark eyes remained fixed on hers, focused intently on her face as though committing her features to memory. She still sensed the lingering disbelief in his mind, even though he was buried deep inside her. She couldn’t speak through the unbearable pleasure of his touch, dared not destroy the primal connection they had in this moment. Unlike Lukas, this man’s love was raw and unrestrained, wild and unapologetic.</p>
      <p class="subsq">He fucked her rough, almost desperately, driven by the belief that this might just be the only taste he ever got of her. She found herself pinned against the wall, his fingers twined in hers, holding her arms above her head. Only their joined hips and her legs around his waist kept her aloft.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Gravity didn’t matter when they could both fly, and soon she gave into the buffeting winds that surrounded them, letting her wings unfurl. Her new lover moaned, his soft nips and licks turning into harder bites along her throat the more frantic his fucking became.</p>
      <p class="subsq">His hands tightened around hers and he reared back, staring down into her eyes as his face constricted in pleasure. With another violent thrust, he spilled his orgasm into her and his own wings snapped wide, feathers fluttering in the harsh wind.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The door beside them banged open. Belah’s gaze shot to the side, then down, surprised to realize that the pair of them were hovering together several feet off the rooftop. Beneath her stood Lukas, his eyes wide with confusion, then wild with fury.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Iszak! Let her go, you son-of-a-bitch! She’s mine!”</p>
      <p class="subsq"><i>Iszak North. Sweet Mother, one brother couldn’t have been enough, could it?</i></p>
      <p class="subsq">She tried to extract herself from Iszak’s embrace, but he held tight. The wind picked up speed as he finally pulled away from her. She pulled in her wings and they almost fell, but Iszak caught them both at the last second and lowered her slowly.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Iszak’s hands still lightly gripped her hips as he regarded his brother. “I beg to differ. The Winds sent her to this very rooftop—they finally answered my mating call after all these years.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">“Bullshit. She answered <i>my</i> call tonight and she came up here from <i>my</i> bed. Belah, tell him you’re mine.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">Lukas’s face was grim and frightening. The winds howled around them, chilling her. Beside her, Iszak pulled away and advanced on his brother, jerking up and refastening his jeans before shoving his finger in his brother’s face.</p>
      <p class="subsq">“I don’t give a fuck where she came from. My music called to her. No one else could have answered but <i>her</i>.”</p>
      <p class="subsq">The wind howled around Belah, whipping her hair across her face so it was difficult to see. The night darkened, clouds blotted out the moon, and thunder rumbled around them, sending tremors through the rooftop.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Her skin prickled from the chill, the wind so loud and violent she shouldn’t have been able to hear their voices. Icy drops of rain pelted her skin, and a sudden gale slammed into her, pushing her hard against the wall. Her head flew back, cracking painfully against the bricks, but the brothers seemed not to notice. They were singularly focused on their anger.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The raindrops cascaded sideways one way, and then the other while Iszak and Lukas stepped around each other, eyes wild. They were yelling now, but the noise of the growing storm was too loud, the wind too strong. Their auras had grown as volatile as the clouds above, lightning cracking overhead while they pointed and yelled.</p>
      <p class="subsq">The truth was plain as day to Belah, but neither man could see through their confusion and anger to get it. They were both hers. Why couldn’t they accept the fact?</p>
      <p class="subsq">Not even magic as strong as hers could convince a turul of a blatant truth he chose to deny, and she would be a fool to get in between the pair until they worked it out. But every dragon knew better than to test Fate by flying into a storm like this.</p>
      <p class="subsq">Backing away from them both with a sigh of resignation, she turned, launching herself off the roof while simultaneously shifting. She beat her wings as hard as she could to clear the storm, which continued to blind her and tear violently at her wings for a mile or more before it abated.</p>
      <p class="subsq">She turned back once, hovering in the air for a moment and observing the massive cyclone that had formed around the two Princes of the North Wind.</p>
      <p class="subsq">She spoke under her breath, hoping they would hear across the distance, despite their disquiet. “You both know what is true. Come and find me when you wake up to it.”</p>
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